In this post, we explain why you should engage your employees in a more sustainable lifestyle and share three different ways you can get started.
Why should a company engage in the lifestyle of its employees? Seems a strange thing to do? Well, yes, talking about a more sustainable living for your employees gets you thinking about surveillance systems and not being allowed to eat what you want.
The horror! But that would take a very authoritarian view of what a company can ask of an employee…
In reality, companies already heavily influence the lifestyles of their employees in everything from when we get out of bed in the morning to how stressed we are. And how we use our bodies and what money we have for consumption and savings.
Instead, it turns out that bringing sustainability into the conversation at work is actually a positive experience, says 85% of survey participants. In fact, staff expects their employers to take action on climate, and 65% state they want to be active in that work.
Opening up for a conversation about sustainability for individuals, the workplace, and the planet as a whole creates a very engaging and positive experience for your employees. But there are more!
Why engage your employees in sustainable living?
1. Foster green innovation within the company
The world is moving fast, and the green transition will only speed up in the coming years. For your company to stay on top, rethink your business model, cater to changing consumer behaviors and demands, reorganize sales and distribution, etc.
So you will need your team to really understand what is happening here. And there is no stronger way to understand something than to connect it to your reality and lifestyle.
There are a few stepstones to make this happen in a non-intrusive way while creating room for innovation:
- Create internal awareness of your sustainability work to date. Many projects are already in progress, and your employees need to know about them to be able to contribute.
- Educate personnel in understanding the complexity of the question and how individuals, communities, companies and government policy all fit into this.
- Emphasize that you are doing this together. Talking about the consequences of climate change can be overwhelming and create a lot of anxiety. Showing your company takes this seriously and works for a better tomorrow will give a sense of belonging and purpose.
- Invite your team to participate in identifying ideas on how to improve and speed up. The people close to the problem can often provide simple, accessible insights and solutions.
2. Improve sustainability performance and activate new customers
Every sector of the global economy needs to transform and radically decarbonize in just over two business cycles. And there’s an increase in consumer demand for sustainable products and services.
This means creating space for more innovation and a better understanding of customers’ needs for your company. With your team keeping a prime focus on this, you will develop better products and services suited for the future.
The fast-changing landscape requires more collaborative work and a shared understanding within the whole of your company of the problems and opportunities. And who knows, if you’re fast enough, you may gain a competitive advantage!
Your customers will be equally appreciative as your personnel for taking action, so spread the word of your progress. You will be a role model for your industry, activating a larger community of existing and potential customers.
3. Engage and retain your personnel
Okay, now your team is well-informed and ready to innovate and improve your sustainability performance. But do they like it? Yes, creating a shared understanding around sustainability seems to generate loyalty and trust among the employees.
Our customer surveys show that 85% of the participants are happy that their employer is engaging them in sustainability.
Companies today are struggling to keep key personnel and recruit new talents. When working from home becomes the norm, we need renewed efforts to engage our employees in the challenges and opportunities the company faces.
It’s fun to try out new stuff, to feel part of a solution, a community, and to contribute! And it’s fun to do something great for the climate! So do good stuff and celebrate it—in return, your employees will stay with you and create a stronger company.
How to engage your employees in sustainability
1. Create awareness around climate change, emission levels, and climate footprints and how this affects your business, society, and individuals.
2. Create teachings to understand the amplitude of change required, the situation’s urgency, what one person/company/society can do, and why it matters. In this context, we find it essential to make it fun.
This simple shift in talking about the very dire theme of climate change makes a big difference. Don’t use shaming that will turn people away from your initiative. Human beings learn when we are having fun, so make it fun and easy to take part in the learning…
3. Create action! This is where the magic happens because learnings become knowledge when we change our behaviors and do things differently. Start small, focus on the low-hanging fruits: a veggie lunch, biking to work, maybe?
Then to something more challenging: bring up a more sensitive topic during dinner or with a business partner. There are hundreds and hundreds of things we can do.
There are easy and difficult things, low-impact and high-impact, short-term and long-term, money-saving and health-increasing things. You choose.
We have noticed that it always starts by taking the first step. Then to something more challenging: bring up a more sensitive topic during dinner or with a business partner.
We have found that it always starts by doing something, a first step. Once you have started, doing the next step is more straightforward, and you are suddenly looking at this topic differently. You have acted for the climate and made a positive impact.
Deedster Challenge—a Team-Building Activity
We have brought these 3 aspects together into one experience. As a start to our Deedster Sustainability Program, we create a 4-6 week-long team-building activity and challenge where we guide your teams through an engaging, fun, and exciting experience using our mobile app.
Together with your internal and external communications department, we create the material required before, during, and after the challenge and make room for the celebration at the end!
It’s challenging to create change and drive a transition toward a sustainable society, but we at Deedster want to participate in that journey. We have worked with behavioral scientists and academia in design and sustainability together with the experts at WWF Sweden and a team of app, backend developers and UX designers to create team Deedster.
Our mission is to involve everyone in real climate action, and it would be an honor to work with your team. So we ask you to engage your employees in more sustainable living.
The climate crisis requires many of us to engage personally and professionally. We do this because it is urgent, and we see that this initiative speeds up change. We are all inhabitants of this world, so let’s help each other protect it.
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